Headline Writers: A-ok In His Book

HEYDAYS

One wonders how many times this phrase has shown up as a headline in the nation's journals this summer.

``No relief,'' that is, from heat waves.

In fact, these same words jumped out at me from the newspaper I read at breakfast today.

Actually, they didn't jump. They just lay there, winked indifferently at me, and stretched their legs a little.

Apparently these are also dog days for headline writers.

Realistically, there are only so many ways one can call attention to stale news.

And that includes coming in the back door, sort of, with potential grabbers like: ``No frigid air in the wind.''

Of course, none of the above should in no way be misread as casting aspersions on these distinguished members of the fourth estate.

Some of my best friends are headline writers.

I've been writing stories and columns continuously since 1955. However, a decade or so has passed now since my days of full-time journalism, and because I work at home, I've lost touch with the day-to-day editors and copy readers who currently anatomize these weekly essays.

Nowadays I don't ask too much of these faceless men and women who are rewarded handsomely to dream up snappy phrases to paste atop my column to seduce readers.

All I expect, really, is that they do not give away the punch line, and that they do not suggest to readers that what they are about to read is the grist of some old fogy.

One of my early morning joys is to step lively to the front yard, pick up the delivered-fresh-daily newspaper, shake it from its moisture-proof sleeve, and spread it open on the kitchen counter.

There, before my very eyes, in black and white, and sometimes in living color, the world unfolds.

The headlines cry out, and sometimes, idly, I wonder if some readers hold the opinion that these words are simply cranked out by cold, calculating computers.

Not in this century, at any rate.

Headline writers are real people, alert, conversant.

They park their cars and leg it across to the building, and settle in at their desks and begin scrutinizing and digesting the ceaseless flash-floods of news.

If they come to the vineyard expecting a slow news day, they'll surely be out of luck. There's no relief in sight.

These unsung characters are crucially important to me. With a tap-tap-tap at the keyboard they can make or break my week.

OK, boys and girls, it's fun time on the desk. My story is in your hands.